"It really was a cultural statement," Doyle added of the Movie & TV Awards change. "And it really is reflective about the audience's views and when you look at the culture as a whole, you had a man against a woman running for president [last year]. It just felt like a dated construct for a category."

Kendrick Lamar scored the most VMA nominations, with eight mentions for his video "Humble." Katy Perry and The Weeknd landed the second-most noms with five each.

In a first, the VMA nominations were revealed Tuesday on Instagram Live via a group of stars from the social-media platform, including Bretman Rock, Ariel Martin (Baby Ariel), DC Young Fly, Andrea Russet, Chantel Jeffries, Ricky Dillon, StassiBaby, Jay Versace and Nate Garner.

Fans can vote for the winners in eight categories, including artist and video of the year and best collaboration, at vma.mtv.com.

In the best new artist category, fans can vote via Twitter bot by direct messaging MTV starting Aug. 18, with the top two artists revealed during the VMA preshow, airing at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, Aug. 27. Those two finalists will compete in a live Twitter hashtag vote with the winner announced during the main telecast. Nominees for the socially voted category, best song of the summer, were announced on Tuesday, Aug. 22.

The winner in that category will be revealed during the live VMA preshow.

The 2017 MTV VMAs will air live from The Forum in Los Angeles at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Sunday, Aug. 27.